Four-year probe finds Foxconn's Apple 11 factory 'routinely' flouts Chinese labour laws

[steven36]

Fruity firm denies abuses uncovered by undercover staff

 

 

An investigation by China Labor Watch has found Foxconn's Apple 11 factory is "routinely" and "repeatedly" breaking Chinese labour laws which limit employment of temporary staff.

 

The exhaustive investigation saw several people working in the factory to uncover abuses, with one individual placed there for more than four years.

 

The report found a big increase in Foxconn's use of dispatch workers – short-term staff hired during peak season – since 2016. Some of these are university and secondary school students forced to work overtime or risk losing qualifications – as detailed in a previous report.

 

Dispatch workers are hired via third-party companies. These staffers are promised bonuses for signing up to make iPhones, but this money is often not paid, the report stated.

 

Chinese law restricts dispatch workers to 10 per cent of total staff and their overtime is meant to be limited to 36 hours a month. Both of these limits are being ignored by Foxconn, according to the report, with dispatch staff making up as much as 50 per cent of total staff at peak times. Dispatch workers are paid more than permanent staff but have far fewer rights and are dismissed when peak demand is over.

 

Hiring temporary staff means Foxconn does not have to increase wages across the board in order to attract more staff.

 

Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch, said: "Apple and Foxconn know that the issue with dispatch workers is in violation of labor laws, but because it is profitable to hire dispatch workers, they haven't addressed the issue. They have allowed these violations to continue over the years."

Other claims in the report

China Labor Watch also alleged that staff X-raying phones to check they have been assembled correctly wear a radiation-monitoring device but no protective equipment, which is among several claims in the report that both Foxconn and Apple have denied to several media orgs, with Cupertino branding them "mostly false". Both Apple and Foxconn have, however, confirmed they employed too many temporary workers.

 

The report also accused Apple's supplier of failing to follow the law for its permanent staff. This included allegations that staffers were not allowed to resign during peak season, that if they wanted to quit during the three-month probation period they had to give three days' notice, and that they needed permission to not work overtime.

 

China Labor Watch noted that Apple had happily removed 25,000 applications from its store and has shifted Chinese users' iCloud accounts to local data centres in order to follow Chinese law, but seemed unwilling to also fulfil its legal obligations to Chinese factory workers.

 

The Zhengzhou Foxconn factory, known as "iPhone City", sprawls over 1.4 million square metres and produces half the world's iPhones. Wages have stayed stable over the time of the investigation at a base salary of $239 a month, which is not enough to provide for a family in Zhengzhou. While social insurance payments have increased, they still fall short of legal requirements and safety training has been reduced, China Labor Watch claimed. In 2018, the factory employed 88, 000 people, 49,000 of whom were dispatch workers without contracts.

 

Staff can choose to sleep in eight-person dormitory rooms and pay $21 a month but they are usually full in peak season, and most staff rent nearby apartments.

 

The full report is available here.

 

We have contacted Apple and will update this story if it responds.

 

Source

[mp68terr]

2 hours ago, steven36 said:

An investigation by China Labor Watch has found Foxconn's Apple 11 factory is "routinely" and "repeatedly" breaking Chinese labour laws which limit employment of temporary staff...

 

Illegally made apple products.

One month ago it was about illegally made amazon products.

(https://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/350579-amazon-is-investigating-whether-foxconn-has-been-using-children-illegally-to-make-alexa-speakers/)

[steven36]

30 minutes ago, mp68terr said:

 

Illegally made apple products.

One month ago it was about illegally made amazon products.

(https://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/350579-amazon-is-investigating-whether-foxconn-has-been-using-children-illegally-to-make-alexa-speakers/)

Same company even , but it's a different plant and different workers and rules .  it not illegal to hire Temporary  workers in China , In this case  they hired  too many they have a limit  of only 10 per cent of the work force can be Temps. Using illegal workers is not the same thing as the product being illegal . Places Using illegal workers is a problem in all countries not just China . 

 

Farmers and many other businesses  been hiring Illegal residents for as long as i can remember in the USA that don't make there products illegal , it means  just some or all  there workers are. The law don't work they way you say even... In the USA  you can hire as many Temporary  workers as you want  so it's not even against the law everywhere.  But hiring Illegal residents in the USA  is  and if they catch them  they deport them back to were ever they came from.

[mp68terr]

Both articles claim (the later even says 'has found') that this company broke Chinese labor laws (whatever the plant and whatever the way the law has been broken).

If as you said the products remain legal it's all benefit for apple and amazon 

[steven36]

39 minutes ago, mp68terr said:

Both articles claim (the later even says 'has found') that this company broke Chinese labor laws (whatever the plant and whatever the way the law has been broken).

If as you said the products remain legal it's all benefit for apple and amazon 

No it dont  make there stuff  illegal each country have different  penalties for Employers hiring Illegal workers and and what a Illegal worker is . Products are not people so its not the same thing even it just depends on  the country they could fine you  or worse . Labor  laws  have nothing  to do with the finished products . They have to do with workers rights and people not being  able  to work for some reason.

 

Back when these companies 1st set up shop in China they were no labor laws even

https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-labor-dispatch-laws-come-into-effect/

 

It's nothing new  in China there is said to be at lest 10 million kids working in China  if what you said was true that would make almost everything made in China illegal because most plants are breaking the law,

https://webpages.scu.edu/ftp/multimedialearning/wkwok/printable version.htm

 

But that's not how it works  they used kids to make iPhone X and they still sold them all over the world.

 

Apple Admits To Using Child Labour To Build iPhone X

https://www.channelnews.com.au/apple-admits-to-using-child-labour-to-build-iphone-x/